


Destruction

by Guyden



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Confusion, Gen, Pancake Trauma Stress Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28634484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guyden/pseuds/Guyden
Summary: Everything was going good for the Phantom Thieves. Morgana had gotten with Ann, Akechi with Akira, Ryuji had gotten a scholarship, Makoto a good internship, among many other things.So why did Akechi feel repulsed?
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro & Yoshizawa Sumire | Yoshizawa Kasumi
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Actualisation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28547772) by [Violet_Crown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violet_Crown/pseuds/Violet_Crown). 



> This is inspired by the lovely Violet_Crowns' work Actualization where Akechi and Sumire try to take Maruki on their own! Read it first but the basic gist is they fail. This is what happens afterward.

It was a sunny blue day in Tokyo, the birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and the people humming in glee. Kasumi and Akechi were happily walking with each other through the underground mall. Kasumi was smiling as Akechi was having his first month anniversary with Kurusu(I may have loved him, but I feel hurt more than anything). Kasumi was glad that Akechi found love and scanned shops for gifts. 

Everyone walking by was smiling, the world was as it ‘should’ be. Akechi walked from shop to shop, looking at gift to gift with Kasumi. They wordlessly decided on a domino mask that reminded them of something. Looking at it made them feel nostalgic for some reason. 

Cameras roved from the walls, blue and black wires monitoring the mall. It was lucky that the security team had gotten a boost in equipment lately. Morgana had suggested that they should stop by a great shop for crepes that he and Ann had gone on a date in.

Since Akechi’s mother was out on a trip (she’s dead, I’ve accepted that. Why can’t Maruki) they decided to take a rest in his homey apartment, filled with trinkets and knick-knacks he and his mother collected. A ramen bowl from Ryuji(The day I hang out with that monkey alone is the day I become a Phantom Thief), a phone charm from Ann(She would probably get something basic like that. Why isn’t this in the garbage?), a bright painting from Yusuke(disgustingly bright and optimistic. It disgusts me), a pencil with a smiley eraser on top from Makoto(I would’ve snapped it in half in front of her), a USB from Futaba(full of what? Hentai and games?), and a Big Bang Burger pin from Haru(I would kill Okumura again if I could). 

For some reason though whenever Akechi looked at them he felt mixed, like his entire body was repulsed. He pushed it off as being overwhelmed since he hadn’t had the best luck with friends. Although he was slightly intrigued. When did he get these? Where did he get these? 

He can’t come up with a reason why he would have these at all. He was on talking basis with them but never sought them out for friendship. He never felt like hanging out with them and instead opted for Kasumi(Because she’s the only one with balls). Even then something about her made him curious(I wonder why? Maybe because this isn’t Kasumi). 

It was an anomaly. Actually how did he have so much free time? He was the detective prince!(sure, a bastard one) Normally he had dozens of cases in a row but he had so much free time. In fact how did Sae have so much free time? She usually had dozens of cases in a queue to take care of. 

So many oddities in the world. Like how Morgana somehow got with Ann(I want to throw up). Or how Ryuji got perfect test scores(in his dreams). Or how Okumura foods stocks somehow tripled in value. His thoughts were interrupted by Kasumi (Sumire. It’s Sumire). 

“Hey Akechi-senpai. Are you alright?” asked Kasumi.

“Yea, I’m just thinking about something, nothing to worry about,” said Akechi. Something felt off about her calling him that. 

“Well ok. Anyways how about we talk about something?” said Kasumi.

“Sure, it seems like everything is going well for everyone,” said Akechi.

“Yea! I think Futaba’s mother is thinking about letting Futaba go to Shujin! As well as Madarame for Yusuke!” said Kasumi.

“Wait what? What did you just say?” said Akechi. (YES!)

“Madarame -”

“No before that.”

“Futaba’s mom?’

“Yes, who is she again?” (YESSSSSS)

“Wakaba Isshiki.”

“Oh, I think I just forgot, forgive me for asking,” said Akechi. (MOTHERFUCKING)

“Oh it’s no problem! I thought you should know though, you were her lab assistant I think,” said Kasumi.

“I was?” asked Akechi. News to him. (We were, just not for what she thinks)

“Yea before you were a detective you were Wakaba-san’s lab assistant. That’s how you met Futaba-san I think,” said Kasumi.

“Of- course. Thanks for reminding me. I seem to forget a lot these days,” said Akechi.

“No problem Akechi-san!” said Kasumi with a thumbs up. 

Suddenly there was knocking on the door. Akechi got up to answer it. He unlocked the door, noticing the excessive amounts of locks he had. Eh doesn’t hurt to be secure. He opened to see a deliveryman. It seemed like he was from IHOP. He handed a package.

“Excuse me I think you ordered these? Some deluxe pancakes with Syrup.”

And at that moment, Goro remembered everything, and threw the pancakes off the building.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoopdeedoo I am considering how these two could feasibly defeat Maruki without outside help.

The delivery man was properly scarred at that display. He mumbled a bit before awkwardly stepping away. Akechi began to walk back into the brightly lit apartment with a grim face. He looked at Kasu- Sumire in the eye and she looked at him with curiosity. 

“Ah Akechi-san-” Sumire stopped at Akechi’s grim face,” what’s wrong?” 

“Sumire, do you remember?” asked Akechi.

“What-” Sumire suddenly screeched in pain and held her head on the table. To her it was akin to gaining a Persona, to Akechi it looked like she was having a seizure. He went to go help her but she sat up suddenly, a face of pure horror on herself. “I remember Goro, I remember it all.”

“Good, so I guess we didn’t die,” said Goro.

“I guess not,” said Sumire.

“Well we are now safe from Maruki. Relatively. Shall I get some tea?” asked Goro.

“Please do.”

Goro got some tea for the both of them and he decided to sit down and let the silence overtake them for a second. Goro racked his mind for ways to kill Maruki. A front up assault would be suicide without the Phantom Thieves, who had fifteen sticks up their ass with Kurusu’s name on all of them. 

Maybe luring Maruki out to kill him? Yea that could work. Akechi checked his suitcase, the good ol silent pistol was there. As long as the Metaverse hasn’t merged with reality, they could very likely shoot him.

“How would you feel about murdering Maruki?” asked Akechi.

“I-” Sumire was stumped.

“I know it’s against your morals but he has the power of a god, but as long as he can’t affect the physical world with his Persona a bullet should do him in,” said Akechi.

“Well. Murder is wrong but do we have a choice? Is there truly no one who can help us?” asked Sumire.

“Should we just wait like lambs for a slaughterhouse? Who knows when Maruki can regain his control over us. Might as well end it as quickly as possible. He’s already done so much that murder seems too little,” said Akechi.

“Is there truly no way we can do this without killing Maruki? I don’t want to live with that on my shoulders,” said Sumire.

“If there is a way I can go along with it. Murder just seems like the only viable solution,” said Akechi.

“Maybe. Uh. What about we try knocking him out?” asked Sumire. 

“I. Hmm. Too risky. Even if we could distract him long enough to get to his treasure, he would most likely be able to sense us taking it, and find out where we are.” said Akechi.

Akechi began to notice the mask that was beginning to form on him, a black mask. It seemed like reality was beginning it’s slow process of merging with reality. His eyes widened as he saw Sumire’s mask form on her with fire. They both stared at each other before Sumire said something.

“Ok so stealing his treasure is off the table,” said Sumire.

“Since he could in a moment pop in and destroy us,” said Akechi.

“Then what should we do? The Phantom Thieves are useless, Akira won’t help, we don’t know of any Persona users!” 

“Considering shooting him?” asked Akechi.

“Yes,” said Sumire. 

“Well that seems like the only option.” 

“Maybe we should check on his palace first?” 

“Fine, it would be best to get some practice in,” said Akechi. He grabbed his laser gun and went to the train station with Sumire to her house. On the ride they spoke about featherman when Sumire brought it up to fill the silence.. Akechi spoke fondly of the earlier seasons and speculated on the newer ones while Sumire listened intently.

Sumire opened the door to the house and Akechi walked in.

“Hopefully your father isn’t home,” said Akechi.

“And why is that?” asked Sumire’s father who just walked in. He inspected Akechi and realized who was speaking and smiled, “Akechi! How are you doing?” 

Akechi stumbled and as fast as possible put his mask back on, “Ah Yoshizawa-san, I apologize I just have trouble talking with people and I don’t like conversation.”

“Oh, don’t worry Akechi-kun! I’ll just leave you two alone,” said Yoshizawa. Akechi sighed a breath of relief when he disappeared into his workplace. He looked at Sumire who was on the cusp of breaking into laughs.

“What are you laughing at Sumire-san?” asked Akechi in the coldest voice he could manage.

“Hmph! Sorry Goro, it's just so funny to see you -hmph!- struggle talking with my father!” said Sumire. She shortly burst into laughter. Akechi sighed and pushed her laughing body to her room, where she grabbed her weapons. 

In front of the construction site in Odaiba, there it stood, a monolith of sickening perfection. It’s form was noticeably opaque, a sickening reminder to Akechi that the Metaverse is practically fused to the real world. He looked towards Sumire and asked a single question.

“Shall we go in?”


	3. Palace Adventures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well Akechi probably will kill Maruki.

Once in the palace Akechi noticed one thing, the layout was noticeably different. It seemed more convoluted, twisted, and packed than before. In fact the room was packed like sardines with cognitive people and shadows everywhere. There were screens playing advertisements for Maruki’s brand of brainwashed bullshit. It seemed like they would have to remap the place, to Akechi’s dismay.

“You have go to be fucking kidding me,” said Akechi as he put his hand to his face. Sumire seemed to share the sentiment as she readied her weapon. Akechi decided to scout out the room. It seemed relatively normal, like a seminar. The speaker was lecturing the crowd on how to be happy. 

“Crow?” said Sumire. Akechi looked at Sumire, who looked like she wanted to ask something. “Since we don’t have a full party, should we avoid all fighting?” asked Sumire.

“Yes that would be ideal, fighting this place head on isn’t an option, nor is fighting Maruki,” said Akechi. He supposed they would have to pick off weaker shadows and map out the place. This was a bad situation. He checked his weapons and it seemed like he brought the pistol as well as the Ray Gun by accident. It doesn’t matter. He motioned for Sumire to follow him and began to jump.

He jumped to a railing that led to a second floor and hid behind the opaque glass with Sumire. They crawled to avoid detection, Akechi was looking for vents or doors to go through. He jumped from cover to cover in a mad dash to find a way to progress. Shadows didn’t even bother patrolling, they just watched the presentation. 

‘Either Maruki is extra-confident or he is extra relaxed.’ thought Goro. Sumire seemed tense as she half paid attention to the lecture, it detailing a plan to happiness like some sort of TED talk. All the doors were bolted shut, unopenable. They had to go through some vents to reach another room. They heard shadow therapists talking with shadows.

¨Hello Miss, I will be your therapist. I just need to ask you a couple questions before we can give any medication. For our first question can you tell us your name, occupation, and address.”

The female shadow said her name, occupation as a housewife, and her address as a small town that is right outside Tokyo. Crow speculated that Maruki is ‘expanding his territory’ in a sense. Maybe they can slow down the progress of it by sabotaging these ‘therapy sessions’. 

Violet had been trudging behind him but when Crow turned the corner and almost fell to his death, she had to use all of her strength to keep him up. Crow barely held in a scream and quickly regained his composure.

“Violet, could you please pull me up from this position before I fall to my timely death?” asked Crow. Violet struggled and said, “Sorry Crow, I can barely hold you up as is.” Crow sighed and looked. It seemed like the ventilation had broken and there was another vent on the other side. He quickly came up with an idea and raised his Raygun at the vent. 

‘Please let this work, please let this work, please let this work,’ was all Crow was thinking as he fired. The Raygun fired a grappling hook shot at the vent and it securely hooked on a ring. Akechi smiled as Violet let go with some panic. She swiftly noticed Crow on the wall as he climbed up to the vent. 

Wordlessly, Crow made a line of rope from his vent to Violet’s. She climbed on the rope and finally made it to the other side. “Close call,” she said. Crow couldn’t help but agree. They crawled through the vents and saw more of what they saw before, an unending show of Maruki’s beliefs. Violet scowled at a few that reminded her of what Maruki did. Crow saw Maruki’s seminar on ‘what to do if a previously thought dead person has appeared!’ and had to hold back his urge to shoot the shadow presenting it. 

At the end of the vent was a security room. From the looks of it it was empty. Definitely Maruki’s confidence. They walked into it. 

“What imbecile is this unguarded?” said Crow out loud.

“One who just took over Tokyo,” said Violet

“Well I don’t have Ora- I mean Sakura’s skills but I do have one or two tricks up my sleeve,” said Crow. Right after he said that he used his raygun to deliver several shots into most of the security terminals, effectively shutting off Maruki’s access to mementos, shadows, and his palace. 

“I may ask you to fix my phone one day,” said Violet in the best deadpan voice she could manage.

“I bet I would make it work better,.” said Crow. Violet chuckled a bit and they moved on.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anticlimactic end! Thx for the lovely people at the Colbub discord server for giving me the idea for this!

Further into the palace the duo finally found a safe room, where they sat. Goro just sat down to relax. How long have they been in Maruki’s false reality. His phone said a day or so. Akechi sighed as he checked his plans. All of them involved Maruki’s skull and a gun, well it was quick.

Sumire decided to relax, their infiltration was taking quite a while and they saw no signs of real alert, only lackadaisical patrols. How much longer would it take to break free of this nightmare dressed in gentleman’s clothing? Violet sighed and chose to make some small talk.

“Goro?” asked Sumire.

“Yes?” 

“Do you have an idea of what we should be working towards? Because we’ve been wandering aimlessly for hours,” said Sumire.

“Unless wringing my hands around that therapist’s neck counts, no I don’t.”

“Well then why are we here if we’re just going to be wandering around like a blind dog?!” 

“Because Maruki’s control will be settling in if we don’t keep a constant alert. Luckily the cognitive world doesn’t know what fatigue is.”

“Fine, shall we go on?” asked Sumire. Goro nodded and they headed out. The duo walked through more hallways until they found a large entrance to a door. It seemed to be the perfect place for either a boss battle or confrontation. The two headed in. The clicks of their feet echoed in the vast chamber. Light illuminated a stage where there stood Maruki, working at a cluttered workspace. 

Maruki was writing pages upon pages on papers, copying things he was seeing on monitors. It was most likely research on the metaverse. It seemed that even with his near godly powers, he used human means to examine the metaverse. 

He looked up at the duo, bags below his eyes. He very clearly was extremely tired. He didn’t even bother saying anything as he stood up, raised his hand, and formed his metaverse outfit. 

Maruki hesitantly tore off his mask, summoning Azazoth, ordering it to Attack Sumire. She wasn’t able to dodge Azazoth’s lightspeed tentacle jab and Goroi could only watch in horror as she was KOed, her body on the still tentacle. Maruki’s outfit disappeared as he looked in shock. He was idle, currently in thought. Goro, in anger, shot Maruki in the head. He fell to the floor, blood flowing. Goro hurried to tear off his mask, summoning Robin Hood one last time to help Sumire. 

Green light surrounded her as her wounds healed, and life returned to her body. Goro’s relief was cut short by the palace crumbling apart. Goro picked Sumire up and hurried to run out, blasting open doors to get to the entrance. He saw the exit finally, although he was dumped into the void, the entrance quickly disappearing. Hastily, Goro threw Sumire and had Loki catch her. He had Loki toss her and had Robin catch her. He got her out the exit and back to reality, whereas he was dropping into an abyss, consciousness leaving his body. 

Akechi woke up in a nightmarish realm, hearing only flickers and crackles of a flame. Where was he? His personas were buzzing. All he saw was a contorted city under a red sky. He recalls the last moments before he felt himself fading on the helicopter. He remembers seeing Akira punch that bastard Maruki and that’s that. 

He gets up and suddenly hears a voice.

“Ey, you awake? Great, great now I can start my over prepared monologue that Minazuki never stopped criticizing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> k ending note, for all those who just wanted to see the previous fic not be edgy anymore, this is where u can stop reading. But for those who want to see Akechi navigate a new world, with new friends, and have to fight against the demiurge again, read The Aether! 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/28182489/chapters/69058185


End file.
